OtherGoose

Wednesday, 6 May 2015

MAY 5

May 5, 2015

Today was an awesome day. We woke up to brilliant sunshine and discovered that we hadn’t moved at all during what the net said would be high winds. I was nervous because most of the boaters had moved into Red Shanks, a “hole” on the main island where everybody goes in a storm. We have been preparing for this “Tropical Depression” HOWEVER…

Today we spent an amazing four hours [had NO intention of taking up that much of his time!] with Stephane getting the BEST lessons in weather and sailing that we have ever had! Stephane has an excellent way of explaining weather and how to read it that makes sense. He was able to present it in such a way that all the trivial bits of information I had stored elsewhere in my brain all came together and the lightbulb was 250Watts! I learned so much that I didn’t know and was amazed to find that I knew enough to be able to understand the explanations.

[And he didn’t know it but he has been the thermometer for us…if Stephane is content to sit at anchor here, so are we!] He told us what websites to read; he gave us programs that will help understand what the weather says, and my personal favourite… “How to escape from a tropical storm” He also explained why the depression that was supposed to form, didn’t…and he was right!! I feel 100% better about being on the water with this knowledge.

He also told us we should get a spinnaker for our boat because it would let us sail more and if we can find on before we leave he will show us how to fly it. YAY! He is an encyclopedia of sailing!! I have a notebook full of drawings now to explain how to run with the wind, what kind of wind direction we need to sail effectively and when we should stay put and “go fish or snorkel” MERCI BEACUCOUP, STEPHANE!

So after wasting his day, we came back to the boat and after lunch we took the dinghy to the beach, rolled it over and scrubbed it. Tomorrow we are going to try to get some sort of contraption arranged to lift it onto the back deck so we can sail faster. We are probably losing a knot [1 mph] by dragging it. That may not sound like much, but when your top speed is 5 mph that’s a 20% reduction is speed.

Tomorrow I am also going in to help in the school while Rick assembles the required bits to make a dinghy haul-out rig.

After we cleaned the dinghy we went for swim around the boat and saw the biggest star fish ever! He didn’t feel very flexible so we wondered if he was dead. E put hi back upside down and went away for a bit. When we came back he had turned himself over so he wasn’t dead. So beautiful alive!

The sky is clouding over again and it is dead calm so the mosquitoes are out. Yes, it’s spring here and you know what that means!!

Monday, 4 May 2015

May 4

Today looks like it will be a solid rain day…flat grey sky and steady winds to drive the rain. Luckily its cooler because we have to keep the hatches closed so not much air moves around.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday the meat market sends a pickup truck to pick up boaters and take them to the market…I think I already told you that. Today the Net controller asked if anyone wanted to go…no response, so I guess the truck won’t be there today. No-one needs chicken or steak bad enough to sit the back of the truck for three miles and back.

Yesterday between rain squalls we went over to the other side to watch the Atlantic. It was awesome. We got a little wet but when it’s warm, it’s not so bad. We had our poncho’s with us.

Last night this enormous catamaran came in and parked at the edge of the mooring field. We could park underneath it…sideways! Maybe we should to get out of the rain! It’s too far away to read the name and it didn’t announce itself as a new boat here on the net this morning…maybe it’s undercover. I’ll bet Stephane knows the captain!

So have I explained the cruiser’s net? You boaters know what I am talking about, so you can skip this section. On the VHF radio, Channel 68 is used in the harbour for boats to contact each other. That leaves channel 16 [the emergency channel for important stuff]. Channel 68 is like having a party line… you call the boat you want to talk to, then pick another channel and you can chat as much as you like. Every morning at 8:00 am Channel 72 is reserved for the “Cruiser’s Net”, and Sue on Wind Dancer is the “Controller”. Basically it is a private news & information channel. Every night she gets weather for the next few days from Chris Parker [very interesting guy… I googled him]

After she reads us the weather, she asks for local businesses to announce and they all come on and tell us when they are open or what they’ve got. Rodney, in the pump-out boat lets us know when he will be out to pick up garbage and empty the holding tanks.

Then she asks for harbour announcements: volleyball games, water aerobics; library hours; Gordon on Blue Heavens lets us know if he needs volunteers for the reading program at the school, etc.

After that she asks if anyone needs help. This is where everyone gets to tell what they need to fix or find.

The she does the “Buy –Sell- Trade or Give -Away” section. After that, she asks for new boats to identify themselves and also boats that are leaving.

It takes about a half-hour and it’s great for giving a community feel to the place. She does this every day for as long as she is here. Don’t know what happens she is not here!

So it looks like today will be another on-the-boat clean-up day or goof-off-on the-computer day…maybe if it stops raining we can go swimming or visiting. We’ll see.

Pics [if they will load] are from yesterday.

This is low tide...rocks are under water at high tide...surprise!

wind and waves washed out the shoreline... stubborn tree won't let go!

Not where I want to be today! lumps on the horizon...we call this elephants dancing

Once an archaeologist...he'll pick up anything!

Sunset in a storm

Sunday, 3 May 2015

May 2-3

May 2,

Not sure how successful today’s entry will be…second day of meds and one of them is knocking me out!! I have practically no ability to move and very little brain power…& I’m supposed to take it ‘til it’s gone! I think it’s cumulative so I should be a zombie by the end of the bottle!

Rick went to town for the rest of our groceries…his cereal and eggs and bread… oh yeah and oranges too. I was too stoned to help him so I slept. Liz figures it should be easy for me to eat gluten free down here, and it is. I just can’t eat anything processed so I get to eat very simply: fish or chicken, vegetables, rice and pasta [the Exuma Market rough in GF pasta when Rick asked about it] so no chocolate bars, no restaurant food… they bread & fry everything!

The nurse told me not to eat Sapodilla fruit, plantain or mangoes…geez, that’s what we came for! They all have too much sugar. She said tamarind is good…it’s tart. So I can cook it and make jam or salsa dressing out of it if I don’t add sugar.

We moved back over to Volleyball Beach today, because tomorrow is volleyball day and Rick is figuring he might try it too. If it’s going to be stormy, we don’t want to ride the dinghy across in high winds and waves.

There was a report of a Tropical Depression forming over Great Exuma [where we are] and possibly creating hurricane like symptoms, but the latest is that it has moved ahead of us and will form over Staniel Cay…a day away. It has also been downgraded to a Depression. So since we need to be up in Allen Cay for May 15, and it’s only 2 days away, we will take our time and gunk-hole up…if we can tear ourselves away from here!

Today, we were running the engine to charge up the batteries and Rick dove on the anchor to make sure we are set for the winds tonight. He noticed that our engine was not spitting out water and when he checked he found that our water cooling pipe was full of crap. So we replaced it. It has coral growing in it….hmmm maybe we need a strainer on the end of it!

So I had a long conversation with Liz this morning about stuff and I just happened to mention that we down here also have wind chill, as in the weather report saying that it was supposed to be 85 yesterday but with the wind chill it was only 79. And today it’s cold enough that we could have put on a t-shirt.

May 3, 2015

It’s 8 am and it’s very stormy here this morning…wind gusts up to 34 mph…that’s about 55 km. We are tucked against the shore and in about 6 feet of water. Apparently nobody wants to play volleyball today…wimps… so we are going to cross over to the ocean side and watch the storms coming over us. We should have a week of stormy weather before everything settles down. In the meantime we can start preparing to heading north, like…getting rid of 100lbs of books and magazines we already read or won’t read; cleaning up the ‘guest room’ so we can move around in it; stuff like that.

See, it’s not always fun and sun in paradise!

Swimming with dolphins in the dark

Don't let the smile fool you... he was courting the female and was checking to see if Rick was a rival...bigger fins!

Friday, 1 May 2015

April 30-May 1

Friday, May 1,

Wow what a stormy couple of days so far! The day times have been ok… cloudy and hot but at night the thunderstorms roll through and we have had enough rain both nights to fill a bucket in 5 minutes [running off the roof]. Luckily it hasn’t interfered with the TV signal so we may be hot, sweaty and stuck inside but we can watch TV! We get the 4 big ones: ABC NBC CBS and FOX and we get two Bahamas channels. So we know what’s going on in most of the world, except Canada, because nothing happens in Canada that’s exciting to the Americans.

Maureen, I know you used to hate ravens but if you lived here you would appreciate them a lot more because of the seagulls. They NEVER SHUT UP! They are smaller and have higher voices. They all sound like they are saying “Ow”, like little kids trying to outdo one another and they NEVER SHUT UP! As soon as one starts, they all start and get louder and louder and …I used to like seagulls.

We got all of our provisions stocked and ready to go, but the storms rolling through may slow us down a little. We haven’t seen winds anything like the ones off the coast of Florida. C-Soul still hasn’t been able to get across. Our weather window may come around Wednesday. Everyone is staying put until the Tropical Depression passes. This may be the first hurricane of the season but it will form over us and intensify as it moves NNE. So we are fine here.

Yesterday we rented a scooter and drove to the south end of the island, about 30 miles. It was a little hairy at first till Rick got the hang of it. We also had to deal with driving on the wrong side of the road and cars that just pass… no matter what is coming. It was a great day! We went back to the north end of the island and watched the christening of the new Defense Force Ship…very British Ceremony!!!! And amazingly the Bahamas national Anthem is very much like the Canadian one, so we recognize it when we hear it. We were also amazed that [and no-one will get the significance of this except Liz or anyone with military service ] when the Bahamian Flag was marched on no-one [except Rick and I ] stood up… not even the officers seated in front of us!!

It was quite the commissioning and we thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. We didn’t stay for the public tour and the reception because I couldn’t stop coughing and felt like I was interrupting the whole thing. Besides the sky was getting stormy again and we had 30 miles to go back to the boat. When the speed limit is max 45 it takes awhile. There are 4 little towns between the Emerald Bay Marina and George Town, so that drops the speed limit to 20mph through them. That being said, no-one actually does that, except us on the scooter! And we had to stop a few times to get the blood flowing through the legs and butt cheeks!

We got back in time to get the hatches shut and Rick got into the water with the dolphins who were cruising around the boats again. This time they came even closer. He got some good pics and got out before the lightening started.

So this morning Rick went in to help fix the water station: the Market provides FREE water to the boaters but we have to keep the line & tap working well. It had started to have a serious drip, so the market was going to turn off the water, and mentioned that o one of the boaters, who immediately got on the radio to let us all know. In about 15 minutes a crew with parts was organized and by 10:00 am it was fixed, and new signs for the bridge were being painted. While that was going on I walked up to the Clinic …

I walked in and got registered. There is a Nurse Practitioner there all day and a Doctor every morning from 9-12. Like any walk-in clinic, it’s first-come-first served. I got there at about 9:40 am. Reception took my info and my $30.00. I saw a nurse- aid who took check y urine sample and weighed [lost 15 lbs so far, even with the beer and GF chocolate bars!!!].Then the NP came and got me and took my temp and BP [NORMAL!!!] and said, “You’re diabetic.” I said, “How did you know that?” She said, “The amount of sugar cast off in your urine.” SO THEY CHECKED RIGHT THERE … never mind sending it to a lab someplace else and waiting for results!

After a brief conversation she said, “Start taking you meds and see your doctor when you get home for adjustments.” Of course I forgot that breakfast consisted of an orange, a half banana, and a glass of cranberry pomegranate juice and peanut butter toast. Point is: The VISIT WAS $30.00 and the meds she prescribed came to $36.00. As one of the other boaters said, “It’s cheaper to buy a boat in Florida and come here when you need medical care!!”

SPECIAL NOTE: There are "Salt Ponds" on these two islands that have a truly horrific history. They are shallow pits on the islands where at high tide salt water leeches in. They are truly awful... the smell is a cross between dead fish and barnyard sh*t. the 1800's some Spanish or English [whatever] explorer discovered the, and managed convince whoever was funding his trip that this was a good resource. So slaves and poor whites were brought in to "rake " the salt. The life span of a salt raker was relatively low compared to other slaves. After standing in the blistering sun, for hours at a time and ankle deep in the brine every day for weeks and months, eventually blindness set in from the brightness, and any skins sores festered and never healed. What a brutal job!